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231. Benchmarking Against Progress: An Assessment of Australia's Aid Effectiveness

Author:
Laurence Chandy
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
Is Australia's aid program effective? Measuring the effectiveness of aid is no easy feat. For a start, there is uncertainty about what aid is trying to achieve. Even seemingly straightforward objectives, like poverty reduction, throw up a range of questions as to what precisely ought to be measured. For instance, how should one balance the provision of temporary relief to those in need with catalyzing permanent transformation in people's lives (Barder, 2009)? Second, it is notoriously difficult to isolate the effect of a single aid program from other factors. Aid is delivered in an environment of enormous complexity where all manner of other events shape outcomes, including actions by recipient governments, aid from other countries, non-aid flows, and the performance of the global economy. To accurately attribute impact to aid therefore requires a thorough understanding of the setting in which aid is given. Third, the effects of aid are not always immediate or straightforward. For instance, improvements in people's skills or the performance of institutions may manifest gradually. Measurements of what aid achieves must be sensitive to the different ways change is brought about (Woolcock et al., 2009).
Topic:
Economics, Globalization, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Australia/Pacific

232. Aiding Governance in Developing Countries: Progress Amid Uncertainties

Author:
Thomas Carothers and Diane De Gramont
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Since emerging as a new donor enthusiasm in the 1990s, governance support has become a major area of aid to developing countries. The idea that remedying debilitating patterns of inefficient, corrupt, and unaccountable governance will unlock developmental progress appeals not just to aid providers but also to ordinary people throughout the developing world who are angry at unresponsive and poorly functioning states. Yet despite the natural appeal of improving governance, it has proved challenging in practice. Many initial assumptions about the task have run aground on the shoals of countervailing realities. As a result, aid practitioners have begun accumulating important insights about how to improve governance aid: Governance deficiencies are often primarily political and cannot be resolved through technical assistance alone. Fostering citizen demand for better governance is as important as topdown efforts aimed at improving the “supply” of governance. Governance aid may be more effective at the local level than at the national level. Despite the intuitive appeal of governance best practices, concentrating on locally determined “best fit” may be more productive. Informal institutions are a central part of the governance puzzle and cannot be treated as developmental marginalia. Governance concerns should be integrated into the full range of assistance programming. Donor countries should address international drivers of poor governance. Aiding governance effectively requires development agencies to rethink their own internal governance. These eight insights represent the framework of an emergent but still tentative second generation of governance support. Often embraced in principle, they are still far from being widely implemented in practice.
Topic:
Development, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, Foreign Aid, and Governance

233. More Money or More Development: What Have the MDGs Achieved?

Author:
Charles Kenny and Andy Sumner
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
What have the MDGs achieved? And what might their achievements mean for any second generation of MDGs or MDGs 2.0? We argue that the MDGs may have played a role in increasing aid and that development policies beyond aid quantity have seen some limited improvement in rich countries (the evidence on policy change in poor countries is weaker). Further, there is some evidence of faster-than-expected progress improving quality of life in developing countries since the Millennium Declaration, but the contribution of the MDGs themselves in speeding that progress is—of course—difficult to demonstrate even assuming the MDGs induced policy changes after 2002. The paper concludes with reflections on what the experience of MDGs in terms of global goal setting has taught us and how things might be done differently if there were to be a new set of MDGs after 2015. Any MDGs 2.0 need targets that are set realistically and directly link aid flows to social policy change and to results.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Humanitarian Aid, Poverty, and Foreign Aid

234. What aid should and shouldn't do in order to support private sector development

Author:
Lindsay Whitfield
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
If foreign aid is to have a greater impact on reducing poverty in poor countries in a sustainable manner, then it needs to focus more on economic cooperation and changing productive structures, and to move away from a focus on social sectors and subsidizing the consumption of poor people.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Poverty, and Foreign Aid

235. Growth without Economic Transformation: Economic Impacts of Ghana's Political Settlement

Author:
Lindsay Whitfield
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Since the Fourth Republic was inaugurated in 1993, politics in Ghana has been increasingly characterized by competitive clientelism. Ruling coalitions are characterized by a high degree of vulnerability in power due to a strong opposition party, by strong lower-level factions within the ruling coalition due to their importance in winning elections, and by a high degree of fragmentation among the ruling elite. These characteristics, combined with a weak domestic capitalist class and high inflows of foreign aid, have led the ruling elites across political parties to pursue and implement policies that have a short time horizon, that do not significantly shift the allocation of resources towards building productive sectors, and which are often plagued by problems of enforcement. The results have led to growth without economic transformation. In particular, the country has witnessed recurrent macroeconomic instability, a haphazard process of privatization of state-owned enterprises, and no serious attempt to build up productive sectors outside of cocoa and gold.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Economics, Politics, Social Stratification, Foreign Aid, and Governance
Political Geography:
Africa and Ghana

236. Investment incentives and the global competition for capital

Author:
Kenneth P. Thomas
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
Abstract:
Investment incentives (subsidies designed to affect the location of investment) are a pervasive feature of global competition for foreign direct investment (FDI). They are used by the vast majority of countries, at multiple levels of government, in a broad range of industries. They take a variety of forms, including tax holidays, grants and free land. Politicians, at least in the United States, may have good electoral incentives to use them.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Globalization, International Trade and Finance, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

237. Traditional Dispute Resolution and Afghanistan's Women

Author:
Sylvana Q. Sinha
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
At least 80% of all disputes in Afghanistan are resolved through traditional dispute resolution (TDR) mechanisms, principally community councils called shuras or jirgas. TDR is therefore impossible to ignore as the primary justice institution in the country. Still, most women's groups in Afghanistan tend to oppose international donor or Afghan government support for TDR because they generally exclude women from participation and are known to issue decisions that violate women's rights. In the spring of 2011, the U.S. Institute of Peace in Kabul hosted meetings to examine the broader question of how women can gain greater access to justice. The outcome of the conversations was a more nuanced view of TDR and women in Afghanistan and a recognition that creative engagement rather than condemnation is a more productive approach to resolving deficiencies in women's rights in TDR venues.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Gender Issues, Human Rights, Foreign Aid, and Law
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Asia

238. Making Aid Effective: An Anti-Corruption Agenda

Publication Date:
06-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Transparency International
Abstract:
Aid flows provide developing countries with an important source of financing that can be used to help build schools, staff hospitals, construct roads and provide clean water. In 2010, aid totalled more than US$ 128 billion, one-fifth of which went to Africa.Yet aid, also known as official development assistance (ODA), has not always been effective at achieving results with the inputs provided. Corruption and mismanagement result from low levels of transparency, accountability and integrity by donor and partner countries.
Topic:
Corruption, Development, Humanitarian Aid, Foreign Aid, and Governance
Political Geography:
Africa

239. The European Development Fund: Perspectives and the Changing Landscape of EU-ACP Relations

Author:
Karolina Werner
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The European Union is the world's biggest humanitarian and development aid donor. In 2010 alone, the EU committed more than €11 billion to external aid. Africa was the largest recipient with 38% of official development aid, 33% of which was specifically dedicated to sub-Saharan Africa.
Topic:
Development and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Caribbean

240. Polish Development Cooperation: A Turning Point

Author:
Patryk Kugiel
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
The current Polish Development Cooperation system has been under gradual construction since 2004. Fortunately, recent reforms have raised the probability it eventually will evolve as a strong and important tool for Poland's external relations. Moreover, these positive changes are taking place at a very crucial moment in history when unprecedented turmoil in the Arab world has exposed the weaknesses of the European development policy and while Poland is holding the presidency of the EU Council. The convergence of these factors further strengthens the need for a swift finalization of improvements in its development cooperation system if Poland wants to play a more critical role internationally and prove its usefulness in assisting other countries to meet their political and economic aspirations. A development policy that is better-resourced and more balanced (geographically and thematically) would provide Poland with a credible tool of soft power and would strengthen the brand of Polish solidarity.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, and Foreign Aid
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Arabia